Heart of Fear Heroic Progression Update
Method has picked up several 25 Man World First kills, the latest being Wind Lord Mel'jarak. Blood Legion is in second place with 4/6 bosses down.

DREAM Paragon is currently leading the 10 man guilds with 4/6 bosses down as well. They are the only 10 man guild to have killed Imperial Vizier Zor'lok. Seven other guilds have killed Blade Lord Ta'yak in 10 Man difficulty.

I thought I'd hop back in to this thread to share a few additional changes that we'll be hotfixing to this encounter today much as we did yesterday:

Zor'lok will now only summon one Echo for the entirety of the final phase of the fight on Heroic.

When Zor'lok uses a major ability in the final phase on Heroic, the Echo will now pause longer before using its major ability, and vice-versa.

Converted players will no longer take damage from Attenuation or Force & Verve while mind controlled.

As with any changes, we're continuing to keep an eye on how these will play out as well as ongoing constructive feedback. While we do take into account feedback during the beta, it may not always result in having a truly complete picture of any potential issues or challenges that may come up with a particular encounter when it goes live. We try to err on the side of caution for any mid-week/progression changes, but sometimes, the need may outweigh the caution.

I Hope a Blue poster will see this and let us know when the hotfix will happen so people don't keep banging their head to instant wipes at 25%.
Apologies for the delay on an answer, but went live as of yesterday afternoon shortly after the original post I made.

What happened to not nerfing any fights during progression because it will downplay the attempts made by guilds? While the first round of quality of life fixes were indeed that - fixes, the second round are just plain nerfs to bring the fight down to an easier level considering the next two are apparently easy as well.

Why is it so bad to leave heroic bosses unkilled for a week? Do you want your content to be wiped out in a week so all these hardcore top end guilds can just whine about lack of it?
This was already explained before. We don't necessarily like doing these changes like this, but sometimes we see a need for it based on what we think an acceptable rate of progression for an encounter should be. We still have the Terrace of Endless Spring on the way and these Raids aren't the end of what we have planned for Raiding during the expansion. We'll work to get you all a better update on developer design philosophy on how they feel progression should play out at some point in the near future.

I wasn't joking when I said I acknowledged the feedback that I've seen. It's understandable that for some, the changes are welcome, for others they are a source of some frustration. There's only so much we can do to minimize this. Ultimately, the question will always come back to, "Is the encounter more fun than frustrating or more frustrating than fun?"

Activision Blizzard Q3 2012 Earnings Call
We didn't get any new subscribers numbers this time around, as the report has the same number as the Mists of Pandaria sales announcement "over 10 million".

Notes

Blizzard All-Stars (DotA) is under development still. Currently it is undergoing internal testing.

Blizzard is pleased with the reception of Mists of Pandaria in China. There was an increase in engagement with 1 million players peak concurrency. This is in line with the previous 1 million peak during The Burning Crusade.

Blizzard is keeping engagement up with WoW by providing more frequent updates.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has sold over 6 million copies to date

Diablo III was the top selling game year to date with Digital and Retail combined, including the Annual Pass, selling over 10 million copies.

There is a plan for Diablo expansions, but no timeline for an announcement yet.

Call of Duty Elite was made free to increase player engagement.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

At September 30, 2012, the worldwide subscriber* base for World of Warcraft was more than 10 million, compared to a subscriber base of 9.1 million at June 30, 2012, and 10.3 million at September 30, 2011.

The sequential increase in subscribers for the three month period ended September 30, 2012 was attributable to the launch of the latest expansion pack, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria , on September 25, 2012, which resulted in increases in both the East and the West (where the “East” includes China, Taiwan, and Korea, and the “West” includes North America, Europe and Latin America). Looking forward, Blizzard Entertainment expects to continue to deliver new game content in all regions that is intended to further appeal to the gaming community.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Excess Valor Point Conversion
We have some good news! Turns out that one of the proposed solutions on this thread was already planned and is currently being worked on by our dev team, they intend to implement a functionality that will convert excessive Valor Points into Justice Points in the near future.

Unfortunately this change won’t make it in time for the 5.1 patch but will be added with a future patch. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Cinder Kitten FundraiserI don't know why they don't just release it right away, the sooner its out the sooner people can get the help they need from this
Keep in mind we have to patch the game to get the pet added, which is what we're doing with Patch 5.1. Unfortunately, it's not at all a trivial process to build a "fast patch" to get the Cinder Kitten in the game before 5.1 is released.

That said, we were extremely anxious to get the announcement put up asap, as we recognize the time-sensitive nature of this charitable cause and wanted to make sure you all were at least made aware to expect it.

He's so adorable! Thank you all very much for your enthusiasm around adopting the little fella in the name of supporting the Red Cross, a truly remarkable organization helping to repair lives in the wake of Sandy. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Brawler’s Guild FeedbackPlease make them more than 1 per person. BrG'll be monopolized, and I think that might be the solution to it.
While that's something we're going to be keeping an eye on, it will be quite difficult to monopolize the invitations. The current plan is to furnish 10 new Bind on Pickup invites on the Black Market Auction House each day, so anyone trying to control all the invitations on a realm would have to have quite a fortune, and be willing to spend it all on nothing more than simply delaying, not stopping, other players from joining the Guild. Also, after players earn an invitation of their own to give out (these earned invites aren't bound, they're consumables that can be freely handed out, sold on the Auction House, etc.), they can do with that earned invite as they please.

What will the required rank be for inviting a player? Revered, Exalted, or will the guild work differently than a faction reputation?
Right now, a member can invite someone else to the Brawler's Guild after earning Rank 7. We expect achieving that rank to be reasonably challenging for most players.

Finally, I'd appreciate if you expanded on what you mean by this, when you say that the Brawler's Guild: "A means of solo progression", yet simultaneously also say that it is: "A unique way to earn some solo PvE bragging rights"? Isn't there a bit of a contradiction here?
Sure! When we talk about progression, we're usually talking about increasing levels of player power. If you spend a decent amount of time raiding, doing organized PvP, etc. then you'll likely either earn items or some means of purchasing items that increase your character's ability to face tougher challenges over time.

Bragging rights are just that. While they can be very satisfying, they don't increase your character's effectiveness. So, the Brawler's Guild isn't a means of progression in the same way that dungeons, Raids, battlegrounds, arenas, scenarios etc., are.

But aside from some warlock-only stuff, a new Wrathion quest, and some more lore quests, this IS the patch.
Respectfully, I disagree. The Pandaren Campaign is much more than 'some lore quests', and, in combination with a slew of changes and improvements to everything from classes to Pet Battles, is quite possibly the biggest thing coming in Patch 5.1.

As I stated in the original post, the Brawler's Guild was never intended to be the big patch feature of 5.1, despite the excitement surrounding it. It really is a small feature that we've decided to try out. Since the announcement, it's become something much larger in players' minds since then, which is part of what I'm trying to address now.

Are you really that surprised? People have been asking for more solo-content for YEARS. Like for as long as I can remember. So here you are, finally delivering what purports to be challenging solo-content, and you've decided to limit access to wealth. And you're wondering why people are both excited for this feature and at the same time frustrated with the design choices you've made?
No, we're not surprised, but World of Warcraft hasn't traditionally been about solo content, either. Really, it still isn't - while you fight alone at the Brawler's Guild, you're surrounded by your peers. It's, at least in spirit, still social.

The whole thing is very much an experiment. I think it's also worth mentioning that the feedback we're receiving on this isn't being ignored, and that we're still considering alternate methods of distributing the invitations. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Crowd Control Feedbacktrinket used: instant fear 7sec, poly 7sec, poly 4 sec, poly 2 sec, cyclone 7sec, cyclone 4sec, cyclone 2sec, 12sec breath, repeat until trinket is back up
That's some good communication from whichever team you are fighting, pulling off a successful crowd control chain where you effectively shut a single player down for 33 seconds is pretty impressive. Their whole team is wasting a lot of time and effort to keep you in CC like this, your team should try and take advantage of that by putting pressure onto them so that they cannot continue the chain so effectively. Your team could also try interrupting the CC chain through use of stuns, interrupts or even CC of your own.

If a team is so focused on keeping you in such an effective CC chain for so long, then their attention is focused on that and you should take full advantage of this fact. Right now however we are content with how crowd control abilities are working, especially when you consider the trade-offs that are involved in their use such as high costs, cooldowns, cast times as well as the focus and communication that is required to maintain a successful CC chain. A key point to make is that we do not feel diminishing returns have been communicated and explained well enough and this is something that we would like to work on.

"cast times"? Are we playing the same game?
Even if you consider the spells that are instant, you can still interrupt CC chains through the use of your own CC, as well as blanket silences.

When the rest of us are talking about overpowered unstoppable CC we're talking about something like this baby:

Fist of Justice
Mighty Bash whoever is close to pala and Repetance
Blinding Light
Instant cyclone
NS cyclone
You can counter this chain with CC of your own on either the Druid or Paladin. Using your own tactics to counter your opponent is something that you should be doing, be it through retaliating with pressure when their focus is elsewhere or performing counter-CC.

Sure there is a fair amount of crowd control and yes dispels now have an 8 second cooldown, this does not mean that all is lost and you will spend every game just sitting in CC. You have to take a step back and understand that the meta game has changed, bring new strategies to the table and evolve the style of play. You do not have to be set in your ways and never change, I am hoping to see even more new styles of play and strategies appearing in the future and am excited to start seeing players using those more. Pretty sure we will get to see a lot of this in the Battle.Net World Championship.

Those really needs to be removed, they do not promote skillful play. Why should you be rewarded with a blanket silence when you missed using your interrupt?
These are alternate uses of blanket silences, you mess up your interrupt and go "Oh damn, cannot let them cast that — blanket silence". This is fine, it just means that you wasted your interrupt and made a decision to use the blanket silence as well.

Don't forget though, blanket silences can be also be used tactfully. You can use blanket silences to strategically and pre-emptively shut another player down from using their instant cast spells. As with all crowd control, blanket silences have diminishing returns and we also try to give them healthy cooldowns to mellow them out. If you have some examples of skill-less play with silences, we would be glad to hear more about it.

I remember a time when only a few classes could CC, and u had to actually work for it, not just spam it since it has no cd or downside.
Some crowd controls have cooldowns and on top of that diminishing returns give them a downside which makes it impossible to recklessly spam because you will just burn out the DR's and your opponent will then be immune for a while.

Edit: And as Mirion already pointed out, your crappy new dispel system doesn't work because of the halfassed implementation.
Okay, I get understand that some of you are not that pleased with the Mists of Pandaria dispel system, that is fine. From what I read in Mírion's post, he does not mind the "think before you dispel" concept. So if you want to dispute that the 8 second cooldown system is not the best for gameplay, list ways in which you would like to see it work instead.

Blanket silences are skill-less, because you missed your interrupt but its no problem because you lockdown the player anyways. They're not fine.
And once again, that is a decision that you choose to make. If you mess up an interrupt and make a choice to not let a cast get off then that is your choice, you have simply burnt two cooldowns instead of just one. I already mentioned a couple of ways they can be used with planning and skill, stating that using them after missing an interrupt is skill-less is not entirely true as that is simply an on the spot decision made by a player, these decisions are regularly what decides the skill level of a play.

Nakatoir, just warning you in advance, but your posts WILL be quoted on Arena Junkies and completely taken the piss out of.
I am well aware of where my post is going to be quoted, that people may not agree with what I say as well as how much it will be broken down and analysed piece by piece. This does not stop me from posting as I am here to join in on the discussion, spur additional conversation and if my posts bring more intriguing, useful and beneficial feedback in places other than just here on the forums on top of what is already out there, then that's just dandy.

Your statement that it takes any skill whatsoever and that they're only focusing on CCing and thus does no damage shows a lack of understanding of the core issues that this game has. You have probably never played high rated arena to be able to see it clearly, but there's a very good reason why consensus among gladiator level players is that CC is completely out of control.
I never said that they were purely focused on their CC and no longer doing damage and/or healing. Their focus has been split especially if they are trying to weave a CC chain, even if it is only by a little, you can use that time to take advantage of the situation. This means that you may be able to counter-CC their team or take other actions to try and put yourself ahead. Understand though, I never said that we are not open to changes to CC, feel free to post your opinions of why you feel there is too much crowd control in the game and how it affects your gameplay. We are always more than happy to hear your opinion on these matters and that is why we read the forums and also discuss it with you. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Garalon Raid Finder DifficultyBlizzard plz go to your internal data and look at Garalon failure rates and how it is causing people to not down a single boss due to the constant 2/3 queue times. We're all stuck here and I'd like to know if it is going to take a few weeks to fix or a few days.
A hotfix went in recently that re-tunes Garalon to be more appropriate for Raid Finder groups - he now has less health and Furious Swipe does less damage.

When did you last face him? The hotfix would have been applied yesterday evening (and will be noted in the next hotfix update blog). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator) / Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Warrior Feedback
I cannot say this enough, I am not defending TFB nor have we said at any point that this much damage coming from a single skill in PvP is fine. I actually posted that three times so far in this thread. I come here to add to the discussion that is already happening and hope to spur further conversation on the subject. As we always do, the feedback in this thread has been noted so please continue to discuss the topic.

Even though it is off-topic, Chaos Bolt damage is something that has been mentioned here a few times. Understand that mistakes in arena should be something that creates consequences for you. Allowing a three second cast like Chaos Bolt to finish is a mistake and as such the consequence is lots of incoming damage. The only time there is an exception to the three second cast is when Backdraft affects Chaos Bolt, which you can see coming from the Warlock having three Burning Embers. Awareness and good reactions helps preventing damage from this though. You can also force the Warlock into using their Burning Embers defensively on Ember Tap or other skills so they cannot cast as many Chaos Bolt. I recommend that you open up a separate thread to discuss Warlocks and Chaos Bolt, this topic is about Warrior damage and Taste for Blood.

Back on topic; we are going to be trying out a change on the PTR where Taste for Blood will only be able to stack to a maximum of three. As has been said earlier in the thread and by Ghostcrawler on Twitter, the chance of getting five stacks is so incredibly low that this will have very little balance implications. We do admit though, the lack of it continuing to occur after this will be a nice quality of life and balance change.

SWTOR Free to Play November 15
We finally have a date for SWTOR's new free to play option! The developers also released more details about the perks for subscribers and how Cartel Coins will work. Darthhater has all of the details.

The developers also mentioned two rules they put in to place when developing the free to play option:

Players can reach level 50 without paying a cent, if so desired.

Subscribers should not experience any degradation of their gameplay experience. In no way will subscribers feel the need to make purchases from the Cartel Market in order to be competitive in the game. (Subscribers will get a small amount of free Cartel Coins as a bonus!)

Can't wait to see what's the numbers are when the game is further in, i don't think it will stay above 10 million, a lot of people will stop when their Annual Pass stops, though it's still a good number they're having, 10 million still is quite good.

How many interrupts do they think you have in an arena, allowing a 3 seconds cast to get off is a mistake? Yeah.. Well 30% faster and it crits for well over 100k on 60% resilience, that's just fucking retarded. Guess Resto, lock, x is going to be FOTM again.

Can't wait to see what's the numbers are when the game is further in, i don't think it will stay above 10 million, a lot of people will stop when their Annual Pass stops, though it's still a good number they're having, 10 million still is quite good.

Horde, horde, horde at top of progression. Isn't it about time they rebalanced the racials a little, it's kinda sad that even traditionally alliance guilds are forced to reroll horde to compete on raid progress.

Excess Valor Point Conversion
We have some good news! Turns out that one of the proposed solutions on this thread was already planned and is currently being worked on by our dev team, they intend to implement a functionality that will convert excessive Valor Points into Justice Points in the near future.

Why was this proposed? I've been at 4k JP cap pretty much since the 2nd week.
If you cap VP there is probably nothing you'd want to buy with JP, or am I missing something here?

Horde, horde, horde at top of progression. Isn't it about time they rebalanced the racials a little, it's kinda sad that even traditionally alliance guilds are forced to reroll horde to compete on raid progress.

I say remove racials. We should be able to play what we like the look of and not have to worry about gimping our characters.